The leader in beauty and brain

Not once. Also, not twice. Or, not even thrice.

For the fourth time, the Philippines bagged the most coveted Miss Universe 2018. We congratulate Catriona Gray for making the Philippines proud.

She followed the footprints left by Pia Wurtzbach (2015), Gloria Diaz (1969) and Margarita Moran (1973).

The Philippines is home to natural beauty. And we need not change that. We are naturally beautiful inside and out. Yet, we often feel lacking. Thus, ungrateful. We feel we're not enough. Then, we find ourselves wanting for more.

Catriona represented our country so well. With her brain standing out among the rest, no one had a chance:

"I work a lot in the slums of Tondo, Manila and the life there is very… poor and it’s very sad. And I've always taught myself to look for the beauty in it. To look in the beauty in the faces of the children and to be grateful. And I would bring this aspect as a miss universe to see situations with a silver lining and to assess where I could give something, where I could provide something as a spokesperson and this I think, if I could teach people to be grateful, we could have an amazing world where negativity could not grow and foster and children could have a smile on their faces."

If nothing else, Catriona reminded us how to be thankful with what we have. We can aspire but not too little, not too much. Still, we appreciate what we have at the moment.

We have to be grateful for being Filipinos, and original at that. We don't have to be Spanish, Americans, or Japanese, or God-knows-what-else. We have our own unique beauty. Beauty can be a tool for leadership in the Philippines or elsewhere in the world.

We fight for our identity no matter what. We bring back what is originally ours. We find ourselves back to who we were. And now, we know we are a champion, a leader in beauty and brain.